How to stop guns, gangs and poverty? Chicago seeks solutions after violent 2016

With more than 4,300 shootings and 750 homicides in 2016, Chicago has had the most violent year in almost two decades. Residents from three of the city's most violent neighborhoods offer their thoughts on what this increase means and what needs to be done to solve the problem. (Chicago Tribune)

With more than 4,300 shootings and 750 homicides in 2016, Chicago has had the most violent year in almost two decades. Residents from three of the city's most violent neighborhoods offer their thoughts on what this increase means and what needs to be done to solve the problem. (Chicago Tribune)

When shootings spiked in January 2016 in Los Angeles, police officials quelled violence in the hardest-hit area by swiftly analyzing data and holding daily conference calls among station commanders to decide where to send officers. Over the following months, shootings in that part of the city dropped.

As a devastatingly violent year in Chicago ends, police officials here plan to launch a similar effort in January, focusing on the long-suffering Englewood and Harrison police districts first.

Empowering district commanders and staff to analyze crime patterns and make quick, strategic decisions is part of the Chicago Police Department's latest effort to find solutions to a surge in gun violence that has left more than 4,300 wounded and more than 750 dead, the city's most homicides since 1997.

The unrelenting year of violence, with an increase of 57 percent in homicides, left few parts of the city untouched and immeasurable sorrow and shock in its wake. For those living in the most dangerous neighborhoods, the violence began to feel almost normal, and a hopelessness set in.

Some, including Mayor Rahm Emanuel, linked the increase in part to the fallout from the Laquan McDonald shooting scandal that played out over 2016. Intense scrutiny of the Police Department followed, including a U.S. Department of Justice investigation that may conclude in January.

The fallout exposed the Police Department's frayed relations with the city's minority communities and contributed to complex problems that law enforcement face in 2017 — a fractured gang structure with young, impulsive members; a seemingly endless supply of guns on the street; a police force grown hesitant amid heightened attention and criticism; and crime surging in neighborhoods that for decades have suffered from inadequate resources and opportunity.

"It's just easier to get a gun than it is to get a job," said William Sampson, who heads public policy studies at DePaul University.

A draft report released Thursday from the University of Chicago Crime Lab could find no single reason for the meteoric increase in the city's homicides and shootings.

Solutions to the epidemic were just as difficult to define, researchers said. But they noted the undeniable fact that guns are ravaging Chicago. Over the past 25 years, no other major city has had such a dramatic single-year increase in homicides as Chicago did, and more homicides were committed with guns in Chicago than in any other major city.

For that reason, a crackdown on criminals with guns is a major focus of authorities in the new year. Also essential, experts say, is restoring police morale and improving officer training. In the neighborhoods most racked by violence, the city and private companies are launching new investment efforts to offer an alternative to crime: a job.

Advocates say it's paramount that the solutions be comprehensive, not piecemeal, as Chicago confronts its public safety emergency.

Chicago homicides and shooting victims in 2015 and 2016.

Hot-spot policing

Massive gang organizations like the Vice Lords and Gangster Disciples once claimed large swaths of territory in Chicago, protecting both the gang's reputation and drug trade with guns and violence. At the height of the crack-cocaine epidemic in the 1990s, more than 900 people were killed annually in the city in some years.

Shells of those larger gangs remain today, splintered into smaller block-by-block associations. Conflicts over drug territories remain a factor in Chicago's violence, but the immediacy of social media has exacerbated the problem, with personal disputes and challenges by gang rivals posing a constant threat. Many of the shootings appear to be retaliatory, leaving police searching for ways to interrupt the back-and-forth violence.

Chicago police attributed 75 percent of homicides in the city in 2015 and 2016 to altercations — most involving street gangs, according to the University of Chicago Crime Lab draft report.

On the neighborhood-level, former gang members are still coordinating conflict interventions through church, community and city-affiliated programs, with a new program launched in 2016 on the historically troubled West Side. CeaseFire Illinois, founded 16 years ago, also remains active, though on a more limited basis after losing financial support from the state and city.

The Police Department's 12-page gang reduction strategy, last revised in January 2016, ranged from gang audits intended to monitor rivalries and changing boundaries to the department's signature "strategic subject list," a computerized algorithm designed to zero in on about 1,400 people, primarily gang members, considered most likely to shoot someone or become a victim of violence.

With the LAPD's recent guidance, Chicago police now plan to take an old concept — hot-spot policing — and decentralize it. Beginning this month, a single room in each of the 22 districts will be dedicated to tracking shootings, calls for help and information gathered on the street from beat officers. Armed with those data, district intelligence analysts, community policing officers and command staff will decide daily where to send teams of officers to try to counteract the violence.

"These rooms will be running 24/7, as opposed to (intelligence) coming from headquarters," First Deputy Superintendent Kevin Navarro said in an interview at police headquarters.

The Justice Department also has been paying for two consultants to provide Chicago with expert help. One of those is former Illinois State Police Chief Terrance Gainer, who began his long career in law enforcement as a Chicago cop. Gainer, who helped coordinate LAPD's recent visit, said the district-level focus fits with Chicago's existing data-driven approach.

"You are trying to empower each roll call," he told the Tribune. " 'Here is where we think the problem will be this weekend.' You get the officers in the district focused and psyched up with what you want them to do."

Los Angeles police officials said they are hopeful Chicago's plan to use their strategy will help. But, they say Los Angeles did more than refocus where cops patrolled.

"An important component was community engagement," said LAPD First Assistant Chief Michel Moore. Cops made outreach efforts in neighborhoods with the highest number of gang shootings, he said, "so that residents could feel safe coming out and, in a number of instances, providing information."

Still, a single policing strategy is no cure-all.

When Los Angeles used this targeted effort last spring in one area, Moore noted, crime jumped in other parts of the city. And homicides and shootings overall in that city were up slightly over 2015.

"We have to be mindful that other problems can erupt," Moore said.

Targeting repeat gun offenders

Chicago's increase in homicides was driven overwhelmingly by gun violence. The University of Chicago's draft report found that in 2016, 91 percent of homicides were committed with a gun. By comparison, between 2011 and 2015, the share of gun homicides averaged 72 percent in Los Angeles and 60 percent in New York.

It's incredibly frustrating when an officer locks someone up for a gun on a Thursday, and then next Wednesday sees this same guy.— Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson

Since taking office in March, Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson has repeatedly called for tougher gun laws for people with repeat gun convictions, saying they are unafraid of serious consequences for their actions.

"It's incredibly frustrating when an officer locks someone up for a gun on a Thursday, and then next Wednesday sees this same guy" back on the street, he said in a recent interview with the Tribune.

The idea of stiffer sentencing for gun crimes has been criticized, however. Ed Yohnka, a spokesman for the ACLU of Illinois, said questions remain about whether tougher sentences really have an impact. Yohnka pointed to the state's budget crisis as a more immediate problem, saying the impasse drains services that would help prevent crime.

Johnson said he was sensitive to the inequalities of the criminal justice system but feels consequences aren't dire enough to deter crime.

"I don't believe in mass incarceration or disproportionately arresting minorities," he said. "But what I do believe is if you pick up a freakin' gun and you pull the trigger … you should go to prison. That is just the bottom line. You should go to prison."

Johnson has an ally in newly elected Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx, who said in a Tribune interview that fighting gun violence is "our No. 1 issue" and that her focus will be on targeting gun-trafficking networks. She also plans to bring in a top New York prosecutor and specialist in trafficking cases to set up a new gun crimes unit.

Foxx said she wants to identify the most violent criminals and is looking to forge partnerships with academics to try to better understand the root of the gun problem.

"We want to go after those who pull the trigger. We want to make sure that they are held accountable, and we also want to make sure that the next person who is thinking about picking up a gun doesn't," Foxx said.

Nina Vinik, program director for the Joyce Foundation's Gun Violence Prevention Program, said policymakers also should be looking at laws that tighten regulation and licensing of Illinois gun shops, where handguns can be illegally obtained through straw purchases.

"There needs to be a focus on the sources of crime guns that are flooding Chicago's streets," Vinik said. "Chicago has an exponentially greater challenge with illegal guns than LA or New York. There is no silver bullet. We need to do lots and lots of different things. We need to reform the Chicago Police Department and restore community trust. But we also need to get our arms around our illegal gun problem."

Absent from much of the rhetoric, experts say, is more concrete research on the gun issue. There has been a long-standing frustration in the public health community that Congress does not fund research on gun violence like other health epidemics, said Roberta Rakove, senior vice president for Sinai Health Systems.

Just this December, however, a group of academics, hospitals and public health researchers in Chicago pledged to cooperate on new research on gun violence.

"Given the nature of the emergency here in Chicago, we really couldn't wait," Rakove said.

Improving morale, professionalism

In the Laquan McDonald case, the court-ordered release in November 2015 of disturbing police dashboard camera video showing white Officer Jason Van Dyke shooting the black 17-year-old 16 times had a ripple effect on police all year. Superintendent Garry McCarthy was fired within days of the video's release, and the Justice Department probe of police practices followed.

In the ensuing months, the department drew withering criticism, especially for its failure over the decades to properly punish officers for a wide range of misconduct, including excessive force, as Tribune investigations found. The misconduct damaged relations with the public, which experts say makes it all the more difficult for police to get the community's help in fighting crime.

Officers, in turn, were stung by the unprecedented scrutiny and public anger. In stories published in the Tribune in 2016, officers described plunging morale, and their more cautious approach on the street. The Tribune found officers made fewer stops of citizens for information, and fewer arrests. Some officers believe the new scrutiny of police also emboldened criminals, now more likely to carry guns and taunt officers, and contributed to rising violence.

Whether any of this had an impact on crime is not immediately clear. But Chicago police will have a better chance of chipping away at the violence if the department can make headway not only in restoring community trust, but in steadying officers, said Anne Kirkpatrick, who heads the department's Bureau of Professional Standards.

"When officers are trained with the best practices and constitutional policing ... they can be confident they are staying within the boundaries," she said. "And when they stay within the boundaries, they don't need to worry about getting into trouble."

In September, the city scrapped the Independent Police Review Authority, the agency charged with investigating police misconduct, and announced a new board that would have somewhat expanded powers and authority.

The Police Department has also proposed changes to its policy regarding when officers can use force. The department also launched two-day retraining that emphasizes "de-escalation" tactics to try to reduce the number of fatal confrontations, with aims to train its entire force in a year.

Chicago police bought more Tasers to give officers more options in potentially deadly confrontations. And it expanded its use of body-worn cameras to improve transparency. On Wednesday, the department announced an accelerated rollout of the cameras, saying all officers would be outfitted by the end of 2017.

Emanuel also has pledged he will add about 1,000 more officers to the current count of some 12,000 sworn department members. A Tribune examination of department rosters last month, however, showed that the city has some catching up to do when it comes to manpower. The number of sworn officers has shrunk approximately 7 percent over six years — including the loss of about 600 officers since Emanuel took office in 2011.

The mayor has committed to creating a citizens' oversight board to monitor the department, as other cities across the country have done when faced with intense criticism of police practices. Emanuel, though, has yet to offer specifics on when that board would be created, how it would be structured or whether he would control a majority of its appointments.

Experts note that giving power to a strong citizen board will be critical going forward.

"That is really important," said Samuel Sinyangwe, co-founder of Campaign Zero, a national policy platform that grew from the national concern over police-involved shootings of citizens and now tracks and researches reform. "(From) the changes to the strategies of the Police Department to ensuring the department is behaving appropriately, that can only happen with strong community oversight."

Hopelessness and poverty

Over the decades in Chicago, the same communities that have suffered from pernicious poverty and joblessness also have endured the highest rates of violence. Last year was no different.

When you are nothing, you have nothing to lose. The only way to become something is to pick up a gun.— William Sampson, DePaul University public policy studies department

The largest increases in homicides occurred in five communities — Englewood, West Englewood, New City, Austin and West Garfield Park. More than 37 percent of the population in those areas live below the poverty line, compared with 23 percent citywide, according to the Crime Lab draft report.

These five neighborhoods contain just 8 percent of the city's population but accounted for an estimated 32 percent of the city's homicides, researchers noted.

The decline in Chicago's poor minority neighborhoods began decades ago when good-paying factory jobs — once available to anyone with a high school diploma — dried up, said Sampson, the public policy expert.

Socioeconomic factors and a blatantly racist real estate market kept many neighborhoods on the South and West sides segregated and isolated. Many blacks and Latinos, the primary residents of these neighborhoods, also became entangled in a criminal justice system that punishes most harshly those without financial means, leading to a cycle of poverty and prison.

These facts are known, but solving systemic poverty remains daunting.

New attempts to offer economic opportunities have surfaced periodically on South and West sides. In Englewood last year, for example, a new Whole Foods opened, with shoppers cheering as they pushed carts through the front doors.

But while he championed the effort, Sampson cautioned that it will take a lot more to rebound from decadeslong economic neglect. A massive effort is needed, combining tax dollars with private enterprise, the DePaul professor said.

"No one piece is going to do it," he said. "If you try to fix piece by piece, you're just spitting in the wind."

In September, there was the launch of Chicago Trend, a for-profit development organization that aims to lure stable investment, including big chains, to marginal neighborhoods, relying in part on deep data dives on the buying power that could be capitalized, according to the organization.

Chase Bank announced in October it would fund $3.5 million in micro-loans and other efforts to draw retail — and the jobs that come with it — to distressed areas.

And Emanuel launched the Neighborhood Opportunity Fund, allowing developers to build at higher densities in an expanded downtown area in return for channeling money toward development and job training in economically disadvantaged areas.

The mayor has been criticized for his cuts to mental health services early in his tenure, which some argue has contributed to an increasingly frayed network of support for these hard-hit communities.

Still, in September, Emanuel announced a $36 million initiative to support mentoring throughout the city to try to bring stability to kids growing up in the most troubled areas. Long-term relationship-building with young people, through such programming, may be the best hope at reducing the sway of gangs in the first place, say neighborhood organizers.

The work is hard and requires not just a financial commitment but a strong, emotional investment, outreach groups say.

"Young people get together and they engage in negative behavior like violence, and there's no one to say, 'Here's how you become a better friend,' " said Joshua Brooks, an outreach worker who teaches nonviolence to students at Austin College and Career Academy. "There has to be some sort of relationship that forms to teach peace."

Need for long-range plans

Despite the city's efforts, proposals so far for decreasing violence have been short-sighted, say many community groups.

In a 16-page report released in November, a wide-ranging group of nearly 50 Chicago organizations called out the city for a fundamental problem with its violence response — the lack of an in-depth, over-arching strategy.

"Chicago remains without a comprehensive plan to prevent and respond to (gun violence). Such a plan is sorely needed," the group concluded.

Emanuel's September speech outlining his own public safety strategy, in which he detailed his proposals to hire more officers and improve mentoring and shore up economic development, falls short, they said.

Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune

A woman talks with members of the Chicago Police Department at the scene where two people were killed and were wounded in the 8600 block of South Maryland Avenue on Dec. 25, 2016.

A woman talks with members of the Chicago Police Department at the scene where two people were killed and were wounded in the 8600 block of South Maryland Avenue on Dec. 25, 2016.

(Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune)

The group — which ranged from the ACLU of Illinois to small storefront church ministries — called for a deeper assessment and a multi-year plan with stable funding to achieve the "scale, staffing, population targeting, program fidelity" to really address the violence.

"There are ways to implement cost-effective programs to target violence," said Stephanie Kollmann, policy director of Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern University's law school, a signatory on the report. "The long-term, systemic answers require funding. A full answer would be expensive. Obviously it requires real investment and certainly redistribution of some resources from some parts of the city to another."

Emanuel's spokesman, Adam Collins, agreed the problem is multifaceted and said the mayor's speech laid out his commitment to broader plans to address those issues. He also said the mayor's expansion of summer jobs for youth is key.

"The reality is that it is a complex challenge that will require a comprehensive solution," he said. "That is what the mayor outlined in September, and that was the intention behind the approach."

Whatever help might materialize can't come soon enough, Sampson said. With problems so deeply ingrained, hopelessness could lead to desperation, and desperation to yet more violence.

"We live in a society where your worth is measured by what you have, and these folks have nothing," Sampson said of those living in neighborhoods wracked by violence. "When you are nothing, you have nothing to lose. The only way to become something is to pick up a gun."